Why RF Micro Devices Shares Climbed

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of RF Micro Devices jumped as much as 11% today after receiving an upgrade from Barclays and Goldman Sachs.

So what: Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis bumped his rating up from equal weight to overweight, saying that he sees positives in new products and market share gains. Specifically, he called out antenna tuners, Qualcomm and Broadcom-based smartphones, and low-end 3G smartphones as potential opportunities. Curtis said he was still cautious about the overall outlook for the radio-frequency component-maker, which is only borderline profitable at the moment.

Now what: Receiving two upgrades is worthy of a small bump in the stock price, and RF Micro was poised to finish the day up about 7%. The company seems correctly positioned to take advantage of the growing smartphone market, but it needs to demonstrate consistent profitability. If it can hit Curtis' goals, that should be no problem.